


if only, if only

by darkflameoracle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Unhealthy Relationships, most of the characters are vague references but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkflameoracle/pseuds/darkflameoracle
Summary: The distractions of lust are sometimes not enough.(Or, the incident at Magister Abrexius's home, in vague terms.)
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Rilienus, Felix Alexius/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 4





	if only, if only

**Author's Note:**

> The way Dorian talks about romance, he seems like he never felt like love was an option, and that sex was all he was allowed in his homosexuality. The way Cole mentions Rilienus, it was only physical. 
> 
> This fic is the intersection of those two ideas.

Wine in hand, reclining on a chaise, Dorian allows the smoke from the hookah to leave through his nose and mouth like a waterfall. He’s high, the mild haze of drink dulling yet more of his senses. And Rilienus, beside him, is laughing. Though all would be well in a perfect world, all is most certainly not well. 

Felix is dying. 

Dorian throws his head back against the lounge, and he can feel the crush of a kiss against his throat and the whisper of sweet wine-drunk laughter, but all of Rilienus’s touches tonight are not sweet like sugar but like almonds, like poison on each breath. It is not every day he is reminded of his old lover. Clearly he is not drunk enough, not high enough. If he drowns himself enough in Rilienus’s kisses, perhaps he will forget all about Felix, for Rilienus is as passionate a lover as he is a poet, a philosopher, and everything else in his life. Gentle are the hands that guide his cup to the nearby table, his body to recline against pillows of the couch they’ve taken for themselves. It is clear, now that Dorian is facing his lover, that Rilienus hasn’t the slightest idea what void Dorian’s mind has crafted for himself. Running over the cycle again and again: he could have been a moment faster. If he had taken the flourishes out of his movements. If only, if only. He might have been the one dying, should things have happened any differently, and if anyone should die, it should be a miserable wreck like him. Ever the disappointment, even as he is now.

But Rilienus doesn’t care, it seems, as he caresses Dorian’s cheeks between his hands and lays a gentle kiss against his lips, heavy and heady with the wine and the spicy-scented smoke. When he pulls back, Dorian almost rebels, grips tight at the loose shirt draping over olive, muscled shoulders, and when Rilienus sits back against him, the noise that leaves Dorian’s lips is plaintive indeed. 

“Impatient, impatient,  _ amatus,”  _ he smiles, caressing the back of his hand against Dorian’s cheek. His words die off to a whisper, just under the sounds of music of the party. “You are too cute when you beg for it.”

“I need you,” Dorian musters, his expression surely betraying the troubles on his mind. In fact, he knows Rilienus would recognize these troubles in his tone, sober. But never drunk, never like this. “I do not want to think or feel anything.”

“No thoughts I can do,” Rilienus replies in a sultry rumble, hands raking over skin, teasing yet more.

Dorian presses into his lover’s touch. “I feel lost.”

“Allow me to find you,  _ amatus.” _

Rilienus finds nothing but his nakedness under a linen sheet, sprawled on the couch, an unmemorable moment like any of the others they’ve ever shared before or hence. The sex does not soothe him, it does not ease his suffering, merely take his mind off it for the moment. For when he closes his eyes to rest, all he can see is Felix, suffering. And all he can blame is Alexius. He lets his lover sleep, and instead spends the rest of the night, digging deeper in his cups, spiraling further and further until nothing exists but the wine, the dark drink and the swirling sounds of music around him. When Rilienus finally comes to, he pushes him back down and encourages him to rest more with gentle touches. 

He would have gone home alone, that night, if it weren’t for the vast amounts of wine souring himself. If it weren’t for the comments of their host directed to his master and former lover. If it weren’t for the struggle of his mind to pull his punches, to leave it be, to relax for once in his Maker-forsaken lifetime… 

If he hadn’t wound up on the floor, vomiting at force to his gut from a blow. Or perhaps the drink becoming too much. 

If his father hadn’t heard of it before he could sleep it off in some gutter somewhere. 

If only. 


End file.
